Here is an email that I got last week from a financial planner: Dear Dan. My hourly model lets clients use whatever retail custodian they like. For various reasons, I tend to recommend the two best as Vanguard and Fidelity. I go…
Motivating people is an extremely difficult and delicate task as anyone who’s ever taught, managed, collaborated with or given birth to someone knows. In business, as opposed to say, child-rearing, the debate is slightly less daunting, though not always much clearer. For…
Sometimes asking someone to do something for nothing is more powerful than paying them. In a research paper entitled “Effort for Payment: A Tale of Two Markets,” James Heyman and I that people are willing to help move a couch or perform…
I am teaching today in class about self control problems, and approaches to regain self control. Here is a story of Buffett and his attempts at self-control: Even the most analytical thinkers are predictably irrational; the really smart ones acknowledge and address…
In the wake of all this public anger over bankers’ salaries, and within weeks of taking office, Barack Obama is proposing “common sense” executive pay guidelines—at least in companies receiving government money. These measures call for executive salaries not to exceed $500,000;…
HBR just came out with their Breakthrough Ideas for 2009. One of my projects was selected to this list in 2008, and another was selected this year. Here is the writeup of the project …. Labor is not just a meaningful experience…
From the NYT op-ed BY withholding bonuses from their top executives, Goldman Sachs and UBS may soften negative reaction from Congress and the public if their earnings reports in December are poor, as is expected. But will they also suffer because their…